Bridgetown Comedy Festival Dates and Preliminary Lineup Announced

The 10th Annual Bridgetown Comedy Festival has just announced the dates and initial lineup for this year’s event. The festival is returning to Portland, Ore., on May 4-7. The four-day comedy festival’s preliminary lineup features Janeane Garofalo, Matt Braunger, Karen Kilgariff, Baron Vaughn, Jackie Kashian, Laurie Kilmartin, Nico Santos and Dave Hill. In the past, the festival has hosted more than 800 performers through its 10-year run, including Patton Oswalt, Marc Maron, Garofalo, Maria Bamford, Kristen Schaal, Todd Barry and Fred Armisen.

This year, Bridgetown is partnering with Live Nation for a special pre-festival event to bring Oswalt in to perform at Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall on May 2, returning after his standout performance in 2008. As a vet of stand-up comedy, it’ll be very cool to have him do a kind of opening ceremonies for the festival. Tickets for that performance go on sale Friday, Feb. 10, at 10 a.m. local time here.

A press release explains the prestigious history of Bridgetown:

Each year’s roster of performers features Bridgetown’s distinctive blend of world-famous headliners, up-and-coming performers, and the Pacific Northwest’s top talent. Bridgetown’s track record for spotting tomorrow’s comedy stars before they become household names is also unparalleled; comics who performed at past Bridgetown festivals before breaking out and becoming known to much wider audiences include Amy Schumer, Tig Notaro, Hannibal Buress, Ron Funches, Eric Andre, Chris Hardwick, Reggie Watts, Nikki Glaser, Pete Holmes, TJ Miller, Sasheer Zamata, Brooks Wheelan, Tone Bell and Jonah Ray, among many others.

Find Bridgetown ticket info here, and revisit Paste’s previous coverage of the Bridgetown Comedy Festival by Shane Torres, a comedian who has also performed at the festival, here, here and here.